Oklahoma's only entry into the 2008 Team America Rocketry Challenge did itself proud earlier this month.
Representing the Bartlesville Mid-High School, the sophomore foursome of Chris Heath, Sam Denyer, Andrew Quinn and Daniel Sauceda comprised one of the 100 entries in the national competition which featured a grand prize of $60,000. The challenge for each team was to have its respective rocket – the Mid-High entry was about three feet in height – fly exactly 750 feet in the air for precisely 45 seconds while carrying two raw eggs, which had to be returned back to the earth undamaged. The Mid-High squad was poised for a top 50 finish before it was discovered one of the eggs had cracked.
“They did a laudable job for the first time a Bartlesville team has ever entered this competition,” said Colleen Bennett, honors chemistry teacher at the Mid-High.
“Representatives from NASA, Rockwell Aeronautics, and other aerospace companies attended the competition and encouraged the boys to pursue their passion for flight.”
The Team America Rocketry Challenge was founded in the fall of 2002 as a one-time celebration of the Centennial of Flight. But the competition was so well received that the Aerospace Industries Association and the National Association of Rocketry stepped up to make it an annual event. While this year marked the first in which a Bartlesville team had competed, it has also been at least three years since an Oklahoma squad has qualified for the TARC, which was held in The Plains, Va.
The Mid-High team had to survive a qualifying competition earlier this year in order to make the national event. The squads with the top 100 qualifying scores throughout the country were extended an invitation to the national TARC competition. The event on May 17 – held at the Great Meadows facility in The Plains – featured a full day's worth of launches.
During the trip, Heath, Denyer, Quinn and Sauceda were able to take in some of the sites in nearby Washington, D.C. They visited a pair of Smithsonian Air and Space Museums, the Lincoln and Washington Memorials, the White House, and the Holocaust Museum. The sophomores plan to join forces again for the 2009 Team America Rocketry Challenge.
Sophomores at the Bartlesville Mid-High School, (from left) Chris Heath, Andrew Quinn, Daniel Sauceda and Sam Denyer took part in the 2008 Team America Rocketry Challenge, a national competition, earlier this month in The Plains, Va.